Gigabyte 8600GTS 256MB Passive FORKING HOT!

zerok66 · Post by **zerok66** » Fri May 18, 2007 1:55 am

Hey guys,

Well I had mine installed last night, while just mucking about in Windows, watching some tele through media center I checked the card temp just by touching it and DAMN it was hot. I could only touch the heatsink for a second or so before having to let go. It really does run hot... bang goes the idea of an SLI setup.

Is this normal and acceptable? What would happen if I moved to a passive heatsink on the CPU too... my internal case temps would spiral I expect.

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Fri May 18, 2007 1:59 am

Is this normal and acceptable? What would happen if I moved to a passive heatsink on the CPU too... my internal case temps would spiral I expect.

Passive cooling doesn't increase the amount of heat in a case. If anything, with bad cooling case temps go down ;)

Redzo · Post by **Redzo** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:11 am

Max Slowik wrote:
Is this normal and acceptable? What would happen if I moved to a passive heatsink on the CPU too... my internal case temps would spiral I expect.
Passive cooling doesn't increase the amount of heat in a case. If anything, with bad cooling case temps go down

I agree that passive does not increase amount of heat BUT how could bad cooling make case temps go down ??

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:17 am

Passive cooling doesn't increase the amount of heat in a case.

certainly it does; think of fans as heat pumps,if you remove fans you are only left w/ convection which is very weak.

Sylph-DS · Post by **Sylph-DS** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:27 am

He's speaking of bad VGA cooling.

A VGA card loses it's heat to the rest of the case (most cards, anyway, some have an exhaust at the back), so if the cooling of the a video card is bad, that just means the heat will stick with the card, so less of it will go into the case.

Now of course, this is still in no way a good thing, as it will only result in an overheated card, but he is right.

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:31 am

jaganath wrote:
Passive cooling doesn't increase the amount of heat in a case.
certainly it does; think of fans as heat pumps,if you remove fans you are only left w/ convection which is very weak.

I could be wrong, but I think in this context he meant passive cooling of the video card alone (unless you were thinking of a fanned video card which vents directly out of the back).

Passive cooling doesn't increase the amount of heat in a case. If anything, with bad cooling case temps go down

I can't see how it would make case temps go down either... surely the calories will stay in the case until they're evicted one way or another, however (in)efficiently the individual components are cooled...

/edit: sorry Sylph, you're ahead of me.

A VGA card loses it's heat to the rest of the case (most cards, anyway, some have an exhaust at the back), so if the cooling of the a video card is bad, that just means the heat will stick with the card, so less of it will go into the case.

Not sure about this though - the heat will still go from the video card into the case, it just might take a bit longer...

mexell · Post by **mexell** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:43 am

I had the same feeling about my new passive 8600gts first. But then I got the MSI instead of the Gigabyte (which I wanted first) which allows this type of cooling. Maybe you should think about some additional case airflow (In a P180, for example, a upper bay intake fan surely helps) or you swap over to another card.

Btw, the throttling temp for most graphics cards lies around 125Â°C, so you shouldn't worry to much. Longevity (card & fingers), stability and headroom are indeed on a different card...

Sylph-DS · Post by **Sylph-DS** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:44 am

nick705 wrote:
A VGA card loses it's heat to the rest of the case (most cards, anyway, some have an exhaust at the back), so if the cooling of the a video card is bad, that just means the heat will stick with the card, so less of it will go into the case.
Not sure about this though - the heat will still go from the video card into the case, it just might take a bit longer...

Yeah, eventually. Thanks for the correction

lm · Post by lm » Fri May 18, 2007 4:35 am

Sylph-DS wrote:He's speaking of bad VGA cooling.

A VGA card loses it's heat to the rest of the case (most cards, anyway, some have an exhaust at the back), so if the cooling of the a video card is bad, that just means the heat will stick with the card, so less of it will go into the case.

If a vga card produces, say, 100W, then 100W is produced to the case, once the card has warmed up to it's maximum temperature (assuming constant heat production).

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Fri May 18, 2007 5:00 am

how hot is "FORKING HOT!" in degrees celsius?

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Fri May 18, 2007 5:12 am

If it's gigabyte passive 8600GTS I would suggest removing slot bracket just below the videocard and making a small duct that directs air over the videocard. If the ops case is a negative pressure that slot bracket will act as another air intake and the duct will direct air over the card, that should help temps a lot.

zerok66 · Post by **zerok66** » Fri May 18, 2007 6:34 am

Thanks Jazz... I will try that see if we can get some air flowing over the massive heatsink.

The heatsink as it stands sticks out the slot just under the connectors... so I would need to open a 3rd slot, but I will give this a shot anyway.

Cheers,

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Fri May 18, 2007 6:45 am

I'm still curious - wouldn't a temperature (in Â°) give you a better impression of whether or not you need additional airflow than just "this thing feels hot!"?

Or am I missing something in this thread?

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:07 am

I'll second JazzJackRabbit's suggestion, if the card is running too hot it's probably because you don't have any airflow over it. For best results you want at least a bit of airflow over the heatsink. Assuming your case has negative pressure, a good solution is to remove the PCI slot cover under the card. With my passive cards, this was the difference between the GPU running at 100*C and a more reasonable 70-80*C. You might also consider installing a front intake fan that would blow air directly over the card. You wouldn't need much airflow, so you could get a low speed fan and undervolt it significantly, to the point where it should be very quiet or maybe even inaudible.

Good luck, let us know how it turns out. Also I agree that a temperature would be helpful, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to know how hot these cards run.

Steep · Post by **Steep** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:15 am

klankymen wrote:I'm still curious - wouldn't a temperature (in Â°) give you a better impression of whether or not you need additional airflow than just "this thing feels hot!"?

Or am I missing something in this thread?

Agreed. 80C (for example) is only 20 away from the boiling point of water. I wouldn't stick my finger in 80C water, I wouldn't want to touch an 80C heatsink, but that temperature is reasonable for a computer.

The touch test is not a good measure of reasonable heat, however it is quiet understandable. I, too, was alarmed at how hot processors felt to the touch the first time I did the finger test many years ago.

zerok66 · Post by **zerok66** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:25 am

Well I don't know what the actual temp is nor how to check it? I just have the standard Windows driver installed.

Is there a single piece of software I can use to check all temps? GPU, CPU & case/MB?

jolynsbass · Post by **jolynsbass** » Fri May 18, 2007 8:41 am

Even 60C is scaldingly hot to a finger, but it a very reasonable and acceptable temp for a GPU, especially passively cooled.

As to a solution for monitoring, I don't know of any all in one solutions. Some graphics cards just don't have a temp sensor built in - like my 9600XT (AIW). I monitor temps through a sensor attached directly to the heatsink that goes to my Kama Meter. That way I don't use any software at all.

cloneman · Post by **cloneman** » Fri May 18, 2007 9:00 am

jolynsbass wrote: I monitor temps through a sensor attached directly to the heatsink that goes to my Kama Meter. That way I don't use any software at all.

Where can I get one of those temp sensors?

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Fri May 18, 2007 9:01 am

I agree that passive does not increase amount of heat BUT how could bad cooling make case temps go down ??

I can't see how it would make case temps go down either... surely the calories will stay in the case until they're evicted one way or another, however (in)efficiently the individual components are cooled...

This is something that I noticed benchmarking CPU coolers. You take your crap heatsink, something that doesn't exchange heat from the CPU to the air very well, and the air inside the case gets exchanged faster than than the heat leaving the heatsink. The heat builds up in the heatsink while the case temperatures drop (or remain relatively lower, whatever).

That requires that the case has some circulation; if the air doesn't move enough through the case, then yeah, eventually the case temps will rise to match the heatsink.

I have a "bad" Ninja that demonstrates this effect flawlessly. It's a terrible cooler (I have no idea why this one is in particular is bad, it looks fine) and it just hangs on to heat. Stick it in a computer and the exhaust and chipset temps just dawdle above room temperature. The heatsink doesn't even feel warm at all, it's like it's not even connected to a heat source.

But, to make a point, better a heatsink be hot than the silicon its connected to. (Yeah, I know that's flawed, stretch a little :) )

So. . .anyone want to buy a Ninja? Dirt cheap. . .

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Fri May 18, 2007 9:03 am

Oh yeah, and you can use the NVIDIA driver to check your GPU temp, it's in there somewhere that I can't think of because I spent all night benching and taking a friend to a hospital in some combination that's obliterated my train of thought.

crispyfish · Post by **crispyfish** » Fri May 18, 2007 9:38 am

I agree with others that actual temperature READINGS are needed. My passive Gigabyte 8600GTS idles below 50C... I love this card.

Re: What Max Slowik said, you can use Ntune to get the temps, if you're not already using something else like Everest.

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Fri May 18, 2007 12:25 pm

Max Slowik wrote: This is something that I noticed benchmarking CPU coolers. You take your crap heatsink, something that doesn't exchange heat from the CPU to the air very well, and the air inside the case gets exchanged faster than than the heat leaving the heatsink. The heat builds up in the heatsink while the case temperatures drop (or remain relatively lower, whatever).

hmm... not to bang on about the point to much, but watts in == watts out, otherwise the CPU temp would go on rising indefinitely until it melted down into a blob of silicon slag.

Once the CPU temp has stabilised, the "crap heatsink/hot CPU" combination will *have* to be giving off the same watts as it's consuming, exactly the same as the "good heatsink/cool CPU" scenario - it'll just take a little longer to reach the equilibrium point, as it has to reach a higher core temperature to shed heat at a given rate. From there, the heat buildup in the case depends solely on the total watts being pumped into it, regardless of the route it takes, and it has to be evacuated at the same rate if the temperature is to remain constant.

I don't doubt your benchmarking experience, but I'd guess localised airflow patterns might account for the effects you're seeing, which is a different (but possibly related) kettle of fish...

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:19 pm

From there, the heat buildup in the case depends solely on the total watts being pumped into it, regardless of the route it takes, and it has to be evacuated at the same rate if the temperature is to remain constant.

That is, if the computer can run that long.

Don't worry, I'm not trying to argue against the laws of thermodynamics, here. I know what's going on is short-term, and will eventually raise the case temperature, assuming the computer continues to run and not throttle or shut down.

I just thought it was ironic and funny and whathaveyou. It'd be like getting better mileage because your clutch is dead and now you're coasting because you know that trick to shift without it, except in first, because that's not really possible, there's that pin that prevents you from doing it, so you have to kill the engine and start it in gear at the light.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Sat May 19, 2007 12:32 am

your clutch is dead and now you're coasting because you know that trick to shift without it

waaay off-topic,but how does one change gear w/o a clutch?

Lt_Dan · Post by **Lt_Dan** » Sat May 19, 2007 2:49 am

maybe he has DSG...
i will get my 8600GTS silent pipe soon, i'll see how well it works.

JimX · Post by **JimX** » Sat May 19, 2007 3:09 am

waaay off-topic,but how does one change gear w/o a clutch?

Move shift to neutral, rev up and, as revs start decreasing, gently push stick in next gear. It will get in at some point. We used to train doing this when I was young. And in some cars (usually Japanese), it's really fast.

Lt_Dan · Post by **Lt_Dan** » Sat May 19, 2007 3:26 am

that dosen't sound very good for the transmission.

in any case, how is the performance of the card?

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Sat May 19, 2007 9:10 am

offtopic, theoretically if you perfectly match RPMs there shouldn't be any harm. Although never tried it as I drive auto.

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Sat May 19, 2007 10:05 am

I started a shifting techniques thread.

zerok66 · Post by **zerok66** » Mon May 21, 2007 3:01 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZEg_pUo7Hw

I was in the yellow Audi... managed a 12.4@115 - don't expect shifting without a clutch would help those times

Aaaanyway, I will install some soft tonight nTune probably - see what board temps I get.

Cheers